


The Cry of the Prodigal Son

by chemicalburnfromthespiralperm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Between Seasons/Series, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 07-08 hiatus, Season/Series 08, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 15:03:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemicalburnfromthespiralperm/pseuds/chemicalburnfromthespiralperm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're a murderer, a serial killer, someone that kills and enjoys it, someone that used to kill things and then go out for drinks with his brother afterwards, someone that burns bodies and holds his hands out over the fire it makes to warm up.  You're...  you're a monster.  You're more of a monster than the monsters you kill and she wants to trust you with a dog?  Pre-season 8: what exactly happened to Sam during his time off from hunting...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. blow, blow, thou winter wind

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/490104) by [chemicalburnfromthespiralperm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemicalburnfromthespiralperm/pseuds/chemicalburnfromthespiralperm). 



 

  
_do not threaten me with the fire of your body my love_  
 _for i am a man borne of fire and shall die of fire  
_ _i eat fire, i bathe in fire, i swim in the deepest part of fire._

The story of the Phoenix is as such—the majesty of the bird dies, burns to ashes, and from those ashes its new self rises, new and fresh, revived with new life and leisure.

To say that Dean would be that phoenix would be insulting to the phoenix, but the house around you is burning, and it feels like Dean is literally tearing at your insides with grief, fear, pain, anger, anguish, sadness...  like Dean was inside of you as opposed to inside whatever Hell he was in this time, maybe Heaven, but this didn't feel like Heaven...

You’re shown the things you used to care about painted in pictures of distress, harsh hard pencil lines instead of soft blurred edges, their faces in states of agony, their bodies ripped to pieces by the things you were always running from, in hope that somehow, somewhere inside of you it will trigger what you used to love about them, it’ll set off all the bad emotions you ever had to get the good ones turned back on, but your emotions are in a part of you, a part of you that's buried down so deep that not even you know where they are.  This is the last straw.

The pavement’s doing that weird thing where it’s too hot and the ground looks wet like it’s melting and you don’t know how long you’ve been sitting in the passenger seat waiting for Dean to walk out of that building like he’s just _going_ to walk out of that building but your butt hurts and your neck hurts and your heart feels broken.  Your joints feel like they’re going to fall to pieces like wax and your skin feels like paper and your heart is all but willing itself to beat.  It’s only beating because you have no choice.

Okay, so maybe it’s been two hours of you sitting on all the glass from the shattered windows and maybe one of the pieces is digging into your ass cheek so hard you’re pretty sure it’s embedded itself into the flesh but what are you supposed to do, really?  So you scoot over into the driver’s seat and the glass rips your jeans and tears your skin open (which isn’t your ass but your thigh) but you don’t care.  There’s blood on the seat now but oh fucking well, the rest of her is broken, too, so you dust off the dashboard with your hand, cut that, too, and you know Dean would be angry about the blood but you’ve had to clean blood off of her interior before so you know the perfect ratio of hydrogen peroxide to water to clean it right off (because you googled it) before Dean gets back.

Before Dean gets back.

So you drive.  And drive.  And drive.  She carries you across the country, thanking you with the gentle purr of her engine, until she can’t carry you anymore.  You have to stop sometimes.  You’re eyes are dry and cracking, your insides feel like fire, feels like there’s liquid drain-o pumping through your veins and it fucking hurts, hurts like nothing you’ve ever felt, worse than the demon blood, except it hurts like everything you’ve ever felt.  Losing Dean always feels like this but sometimes you forget.  You shouldn’t have to remember what losing him feels like.  And then the Impala has a quarter of a tank.  And then she’s on empty.  And now you’re somewhere in Texas in the middle of the road getting honked at because your car ran out of gas and you don’t have the energy or the will to get the fuck out of the car and move her off the side of the road, so you don’t.  You sit there, hand’s white-knuckling the wheel, the palm of your right hand practically glued to it because of the blood that’s caked on underneath.

And then someone speeds around you, pulls to a halting stop next to your car (Dean's car), yells at you, calls you a fuck up and a loser and that, of all things, is what sets you off.  You get out of the car, slam her door shut and tear this stupid asshole out of his self-important Cadillac Escalade and beat him within an inch of his life, all because he cursed at you.  And people are watching you do it but they don’t do anything.  They don’t even call the cops because half of them are afraid you’ll kill them, so you calmly push Baby off to the side of the road by yourself, pure adrenaline rushing and overpowering your broken veins and you get back inside of her and you sit.

You’re dead inside.  This is what Lucifer felt like, only this is so much worse because Dean isn’t here to pick up the pieces.

Dean isn’t here.

There’s a motel about two miles back and a gas station about a mile from there, so you leave the Impala on empty on the side of the road.  Takes you an hour to get the gas and come back, and luckily she’s still there.  Don’t really know what you’d have done if she wasn’t.  There's blood still caked onto the pavement, but everyone drove off.  This, too, shall pass or some bullshit.

You drive her to the motel and for three months you lie in that bed, only leaving when the hunger pains are too violent inside you that you have to eat, otherwise, if you could, you’d die there.  The scruff isn't scruff anymore so much as it is a beard, long and scratching against your face.  What's the point of shaving?  What's the point of doing anything other than lying here on this bed, rotting?  Dean is gone, Cas is gone, Bobby is gone, Jess is gone, mom and dad are gone.  You’re alone.

_You’re well and truly on your own now, Sam.  What does it feel like, knowing everything and everyone you’ve ever loved is dead?  Knowing that no matter how much you give, someone always finds something else to take away?  Haven’t you given enough?  Hasn’t everyone taken enough_?

Haven’t you suffered enough?

 

\-------------------

After a week of lying in the motel room, you call for Cas.  You shout yourself hoarse.  You scream yourself raw and the manager of the motel bangs on the door and threatens to call the police but you pull a twenty out of your pocket and shove it into his face to get him to go away.

You scream and shout.  Pretty sure your throat is bleeding.

Castiel never comes.

 

\-------------------

There's something so...  fucking _irritating_ about the book in front of you.

It sasy that the first law of thermodynamics states that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed.  All your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that ever was remains in the universe.  People don't die.  They literally cannot die, according to this fucking book.  You're so angry that you're shaking, and the librarian keeps giving you nervous glances, but you keep reading.

According to the law of conservation, not one bit of Dean is gone, he’s just less orderly.  Babies are born and old people wither.  Sam won’t wither, he'll die first, but physics still remains sound—everything is energy.  Everything is connected.  Human beings are created from stardust, from microscopic entities in the universe, stars and their particles and from those particles a human being is somehow fashioned, but never destroyed.  You cannot create, and you cannot destroy.  People don't die.

You throw the book across the room and break a window.

You're asked to leave.

The librarian is crying.

\-------------------

Somewhere between Austin and the horizon, you find a road that has that metal siding on the right shoulder, obviously because you're driving on a cliff.  One wrong move and you and your car are toast.  That's how Dean would want you to go out, right?  In a blaze of glory with the Impala, meet him on the other side with a grin, he hands you a beer, you head to the Roadhouse and the rest is history, soul mates in Heaven and all that bullshit.

There's a turn up ahead, sharp left, and if you don't make it, off the cliff you go, Thelma and Louise... only the passenger seat is glaringly missing its Louise.  Oh well.  If you close your eyes you can pretend that you hear Dean laughing, so you do.

This is it.  You're going to die.  Mosters have killed every God damn thing you've ever had to live for--your brother, girlfriend, father, mother, cousins, grandparents, friends...  you have nothing.  You are nothing.  Every demon within a 12,000 mile radius couldn't give a shit about you because you're useless without Dean.  If even they can see that, then you know you have a problem.

You close your eyes, and you see every bad decision you've ever made flashing through your head, a Sam Winchester's worst hits, all compiled into one hit album, on sale now for $6.66!  You'll hear tracks such as, "Sam and the Demon Blood," and "I'll Never Love You More Than I Hate Hunting, Dean," and don't forget our personal favorite, "You Started the Apocalypse, Sam, and Now Your Own Brother Can't Stand You!"  It hurts, but not more than losing Dean has ever hurt.

At this point, you'd pick up your phone and call Bobby, but he's dead.  

So you drive off a cliff instead...  or you try to, until a dog jumps in front of the car.

\-------------------

"I need help!  The dog needs help!  He just...  he came out of no where!"  The tiny nurse leads you into a room.  Everything is white, reminds you of the sanitarium, but you don't have time to think of that.  "Right in front of my car!  We need a doctor!  Are you a doctor?"

"The doctor is coming, sir, but I'm not sure--"

"You're not sure _what_?!"  You're screaming.  Oh well.  "This is an animal hospital!  You save animals!"

"Sir-"

"Save this animal!"  She needs to save this animal because you can't have the blood of another living thing on your hands, not like Dean, not like Bobby...

"Okay, Roberta, can you escort this gentleman out, please?"  Doctor.  This is the doctor.

"Yes."

"I did this..."  You did.  You're resposible.  You killed ~~Dean~~ the dog.

The doctor looks at you like you've already killed the dog.  

\-------------------

You hate hospitals because they're white and they remind you of the pit.  People think the devil is hot, like hell, but Lucifer ran cold, an absolute absence of heat and you wish you could tell that to someone.  You wish Dean were here to explain that to, but he's not, so you just sit here and look at the white floor and the white walls and the white seats and you think about the devil crawling under your skin, you think about him turning your skin so frozen solid that one tap and it shattered like glass over and over.  Lucifer hates you, as pure and unadulterated as another person or thing could hate someone else.

You hate hospitals because dad died in a hospital.  Dean almost died in a hospital.  Bobby died in a hospital.  Hospitals kill people.  You have never been to a hospital that actually saved someone in more than 30 years.

You don't really like hospitals.  

You don't like blood, either.  Kind of strikes you as odd that the dog has the same color blood as Dean, but then again, what other color was it supposed to be?  The blood on your shirt is from the dog, though, not Dean, but whatever.  Same color, might as well be the same.  No one will know the difference.  It won't be the first time you've had to clean someone else's blood out of your shirt.

Doctor walks out.  You don't like her very much.  "He sustained some serious internal bleeding.  There's at least two leg fractures that I can see right now, but with some TLC he should pull through for you."

Not your dog.

"Thanks, doctor."

She saved dog.  Maybe you like her a little.

"You're gonna take the dog?"

Why's she asking?  Not your dog.  You live in a fucking car.  "I would, but...  he-he's not mine."

"He's not anybody's."

NOT YOUR DOG, LADY.  "I-I spend a lot of time on the road-"

"Don't you think you're responsible?"

Yeah, you don't like her anymore.

You fucking brought the dog in, you could have let him die!  You're pretty sure you're PLENTY responsible!  "Why do you think I brought him here?"

"Roberta, could you hand this man his trophy on his way out, please?"  Is...  is she for real?  "Maybe if you weren't such an upstanding guy, you wouldn't have hit him in the first place."

Oh.  Oh...  oh you're so _sorry_ that you hit the dog while you were trying to kill yourself.  Next time you'll be more considerate.  She's not going to let you leave.  The walls are closing in on you.  She's going to call the police, find out that you're legally dead...  find out so many things.  Find out that your brother is dead and you were trying to kill yourself because you can't stand how much it hurts to lose him and everyone else you've ever love.

Lady... you don't understand.  You're a murderer, a serial killer, someone that kills and enjoys it, someone that used to kill things and then go out for drinks with his brother afterwards, someone that burns bodies and holds his hands out over the fire it makes to warm up.  You're...  you're a monster.  You're more of a monster than the monsters you kill and she wants to trust you with a dog?

"Fine.  I'll take him."

She looks you up and down like she could strangle you.  "There's my hero."

Fuck her.  You're not anyone's hero.

Except...  maybe the dog.  You can be a dog's hero.

_"No dogs in the car, Sam_."

You're dead.  Fuck you.


	2. winter wakeneth all my care

" _The inner door panel comes off, the mounting hardware holding on to broken shards has gotta be taken out, and new glass has to be shimmied into place; then everything's got to be bolted back together_ -"

Shut the fuck up.  Pretty sure you're more than capable of replacing a broken window.  

Dean shrugs, holds his hands up in a placating manner in that cocky, assertive way that he does.  " _Just tryin' to help, man.  I know you're a tiny baby bird when it comes to fixing this car and I just wanna make sure you do it right, bitch!  You hurt my baby, you get pun_ -"

Punched, yeah, you know.  Everybody knows.  Your cheek and nose will literally never be the same because of it.  Now shut the fuck up or you might hurt yourself on the glass.

" _Can't hurt yourself on this glass, idiot.  It's hurt-proof.  You've really been drivin' around in my baby for the last three months with broken windows, you shit head?  What if somebody stole her?_ "

No.

" _Pssh.  Thanks, Sam.  Glad you care about your friggin' house_."

Home, Dean.  Home.

" _You obviously don't think so if you've been driving her around broke, Sam_!"

You were too busy mourning, sorry.

" _Shut up, you girl, and fix the God damn car_."

You do.  She seems to sigh under your hands, glad that at least one Winchester is still around to fix her up after someone's broken her.  You almost took her to a garage but not only did Dean glare at you, the car did, too.  Dean sat with you for hours before he went to Hell teaching you how to fix this car.  There's no way she'd trust someone else to fix her up.  It has to be a Winchester.  Winchester bloodline.  Sacred vessel.

Dog looks at you from his spot on the grass.  He seems content, like he was lost and happy to be found.  You feel the same way, kinda bad that a dog had to pull you back from trying to kill yourself, but baby steps.  You still want to, but someone has to fix the car, and someone has to take care of the dog.  Someone has to take him back to his follow-up appointment.  

Dean watches you with a scrutinzing gaze but he's dead so you're not really sure how this corresponds with your skewed version of reality, but his presence is comforting no matter what's going through your head right now.  You wish that he could guide your hands, put his hands on yours and show you the right way, not the way that you remember that you think is right.  Youtube only goes so far.

He's literally a ghost.  It's sort of comforting, seeing the spirit of your dead brother.  Are you crazy?  Probably.  You haven't killed anything in a while and you're sort of getting the itch for it, but the fact that you're itching to kill something just makes you uneasy.  You shouldn't want to kill something.

You shouldn't want to go back to that life.  Blood on your hands shouldn't feel like home.

The car door makes a loud crashing sound and suddenly you're on your ass on the ground -- everything's gone black except for what you can see.  Dean's face.  It's angry, horrifyingly angry, and Castiel looks like he always does and Dick Roman is tweaking out.  He's all teeth and weird fucking tongue, and Kevin is right beside you, but he's hanging strong because he's in advanced placement.  He starts doing that weird pulsing thing, and everyone's confused.  You want to reach forward and grab onto Dean, hold onto him and hug him because he finally avenged Bobby.  Dean, no one else.  

Everything has gone black and you realize it's not because you've blacked out, but it's because Dick Roman exploded and everything is covered in black goo.  You see Crowley's face and he's taunting you, and before you know it you're waking up next to the impala with a screwdriver through your shoulder.

Google says it's PTSD.

You think Google can be wrong sometimes.


End file.
